


Absence

by Arcanista



Series: Our Own Sins [14]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: BDSM, Canon Disabled Character, Demonic Possession, Disability, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, I have a plot laid out, Kissing, Maledom, POV Third Person Limited, Physical Disability, Poor Life Choices, Present Tense, Serious Mary Sue bullshit, Trespasser - Freeform, Trespasser DLC, honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:59:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4850381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcanista/pseuds/Arcanista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iskia Lavellan passes through the final eluvian and encounters the god who might finally be her match. A long-standing debt is collected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absence

Somewhere in the world, a little girl is screaming in agony. Iskia clamps down on it, crushes her beneath her bootheel, as she always does. She forces her head downward so she can look at her blazing hand. It will be gone soon, but not soon enough.

She is the solution. Iskia raises her right hand, the clumsy one. Gracelessly, she reaches for power, clutches at it. A throat clenches, tries to swallow and fails. In a single burst, she brings her magic to bear against the traitor's hand.

The pain belongs to someone else. She stays on one knee, holding steady. This is what all her efforts up til now have been leading up toward. The division of the self she learned to play the Game is child's play to this now.

Iskia remains rooted to that spot, waiting for something. Some part of her knows what she's waiting for, somewhere, but she cannot devote the thought to it right now. She will know when it comes. Until then, the Well is silent. The world is silent.

As she stares at the eluvian, she forces thought into her waking mind, finds a focus: that Blackwall (now, always, still, at least in her head) must be frantic. She hopes he is at least attempting to comfort Dorian. It will be a distraction to him... and Dorian needs everything right now. She cannot go to him.

The eluvian remains active before her. One final courtesy, she assumes. Solas will be a cordial enemy. That will be a problem. The Inquisition must be maintained, then, as best as she can manage. She dare not dissolve the organization, lest she scatter the spies. They will be found.

That work will occur in private. Leliana will need to be apprised of all this. The networks must be purged... mostly.

Sunset stains the edges of the sky pink when she hears the distant sound of wingbeats. Iskia lifts her head, stays on bended knee. Some compulsion seizes her, and she throws her arms wide. A demon-raven alights upon her outstretched wrist. A spirit-raven perches an inch from her stump.

"A long time, Inquisitor," says the raven called Fear.

"No time at all, da'len," says the raven called Deceit.

Iskia closes her eyes against the world. The pain nags at her, cries for her attention like Elodie does. This is not the first time she has felt these voices. The memory rises from the part of her that screams. Words rise to her lips unbidden, "You play a long game." A myriad of choices led her to this place, at this time, as this person. So many things that could have gone wrong. So many things deftly placed so that they would not. She thirsts to know them all. She aches for the key to this memory.

"Longer than you know," says Fear.

"As long as you suspect," says Deceit.

Yet Iskia feels bone-weary, pain thrusting at her even through her focus. She knows the sensations well enough to anticipate a collapse. Not long now, if she lets it. By will alone she will remain upright. "You would use me as well," says the part of her that remembers, keeping its secrets. She holds her shoulders square, arms unbending even with the ravens' weight upon them.

"You have used well that which you have purchased," says Deceit.

"But it was a bargain, not a gift," says Fear, taking wing.

"A price was set, Inquisitor," says Deceit, moving to her shoulder.

"A price must be paid, da'len," says Fear. Iskia lowers her arms.

A gust of wind rises, sending Iskia's coat flapping behind her. She knows what these beings are, even if she cannot remember how she knows them. "How much of what he said was true?" she asks.

"Truth is mutable," says Fear. The raven circles her, wingbeats pushing a breeze against her face.

"Truth is what you need it to be," says Deceit, grasping her hair in its beak.

"Accurate, then," says Iskia. "He wears his bias on his sleeve, but did he speak _his_  truth? Or something else?"

Fear lands on the ground, a few feet away, and picks at a worm. "We are not here to tell you things you already know," it says. In two bites, the worm is gone.

"He tells you what he wishes to be true," says Deceit, close to her ear. "Of course some of it is. We are not here to educate you in the discernment."

If she needed that sort of guidance, she wouldn't be here. But there is a guidance that she does need. "Why _are_  you here, then? If I've purchased something from you, what is it?" She cannot devote the effort to searching for the answer inside herself. The raven's breath in her hair gives her something to fixate on, to keep her mind _here_  and away from her hand. Her tongue presses to her lips, holding steady.

Deceit nips her earlobe. "Once you traded a soul for power."

"Once you traded a soul for knowledge." Fear spreads its wings, taking flight with three powerful strokes.

"You have made a temple of your soul," says Deceit, claws digging into her shoulder.

Fear lands on her other shoulder. "You have made a temple of your body."

"Now comes the time to worship." Iskia can't tell which one speaks the words. It doesn't matter. The edges of her focus erode further, pain greying her vision. The ravens grasp her coat between their claws and start tugging her downward. Her efforts have taken their toll; she cannot resist at all. They guide her down to the rubble, letting her head settle on a pile of fallen leaves.

And yet, she is standing. There is no wind here. The place is familiar, somehow, all dreary rocks around her. She curls and uncurls her fingers, then looks at both her arms. Just one hand. If this is a dream, it's a terrible one.

"Do you want it back?"

Iskia snaps her attention upward, The Fade. This is absolutely the Fade, rocks drifting through the air and that strange dead smell clinging to her nose. The pain that was merely distant before is absent now. She presses her lips together, shoulders squared.

A figure sits perched on the shoulder of a statue. Iskia needs to crane her neck to even see it, standing beside the massive sword that impales the statue straight through. The figure is not at all like the spirit of Divine Justinia, bright and commanding. It is an inverse of form, all shadow. She should be unable to see it. Now that she does, she cannot look away.

It flickers: after that second, it is moving, falling too slowly toward her. Iskia stays rooted to the ground, shoulders square. She lifts her left arm and looks at the absence of hand. She offers no answer to the clearly rhetorical question. She lets her arm drop. It still does not feel like her own.

Moments stretch to minutes before the figure lands, perhaps five feet in front of Iskia. An impression of head tilts toward her. "We meet at last," it says.

"It seems you have the advantage of me," says Iskia. She searches the form for any sort of feature at all, but there is literally nothing there. Instead she glances away, face schooled to neutrality. She will not relinquish any further than that.

"Yes," says the spirit. "I do." It strides closer to her, threatening to force her back. Whatever it isn't, it absolutely has the physical presence to attempt to intimidate.

Iskia stands fast, looks it in the face. Whatever she assumes is its face. She knows this game, has played it a hundred times before. "I suppose you're the collector. I'm afraid I left my purse back at Halamshiral, though. How much do I owe you?" This one seems sharper than Solas, at least.

It reaches for her and grasps her chin between too-long fingers. It turns her face this way and that, looking at her like some sort of bug. She allows it, refuses to be unnerved. Goosebumps raise at the small of her back. It remains silent far beyond necessary, before speaking, "Twelve years ago, you met my friends in the waking world. You asked them for your siren's song, For the eyes that cut like knives. For power. You remember, don't you?"

She finds that she does. Iskia touches her tongue to her lips. "I do, Keeper," she says. She names this spirit as she did not name Solas. This is a ritual: this is the sacred exchange of secrets. She knows these steps in a dance she has never heard the beat of before.

"Guilty," says Dirthamen, a masculine timbre beginning to bleed through his voice. He releases her chin, but rests his fingers against the side of her neck. They tingle, and all the tiny hairs on her skin ache towards that subtle touch. "Tell me what I want from you."

This is not what Iskia was prepared for. She swallows, trying to slow her breath. "I'd hear it in your own words," she says. To say it would be to kneel. She will not.

Dirthamen draws close, his hand sliding down from her neck to cup a breast through her coat. She knows now that she erred. The spirit-god-mage-king leans his head in and breathes into her ear, "I require your body, Inquisitor." He is as blank and featureless as when she first caught sight of him, but now she feels teeth on her earlobe, a tongue playing at her earring. "You have already offered it unto me. All of this is mine."

A mistake, a mistake. Iskia finds herself holding her breath. "I can still renege." Her voice is true, even where her body is not. She will not relinquish herself.

"You can," says Dirthamen. He draws his head back, blank face just inches from hers, breath staining her face. "You don't. You know why, if you think about it." His other arm curls around her waist, pulling her close against him. She feels her heart quicken despite herself.

"Are you what he said?" Iskia asks. She looks for any sign of face or feature on Dirthamen's form, but there is nothing, no matter how hard she stares. Still he breathes, still she feels his heat. "A false god, an evil god, an up-jumped general mired in hubris?"

He shrugs. "What is it to you?" he says. "I was worshipped. I am worshipped. I will be worshipped. I never called myself a god: but that is what they named me. I never denied it. That is enough for you, is it not? You don't care about the rest." Dirthamen releases her breast, raises that hand to cup her jaw.

Iskia shudders against this body of this god, ancient and powerful and trapped here. "He wants to tear down the Veil," she says, and lifts her remaining hand. She settles it on his shoulder: feels the sensation of touching bare flesh, warm with blood. "If I let him do such a thing, you would be free. What do you need me for?"

Dirthamen tilts his head, hovers his lips a breath above hers. He does not kiss her. "This world you know is not the world I knew. But it is _a_  world. I can rule there, without resorting to misguided attempts to undo what has been done. The path only leads forward: I can see that, even if Fen'Harel does not." He strokes her cheek with the palm of his hand. Now, he kisses her, hard and unyielding, lip to lip but no more. He presses her head back with the force of it, commanding her to bend.

She is the one who kisses, and yet he is kissing her. With hands and mouth, he compels her to yield. Still she stands. Her breath is heavy when he breaks the kiss, her fingers trembling on his shoulder. With her left hand, she makes to push her hair away from her face, and misses. "Why me?" she asks, voice coming hoarse and throaty. "I can't be the only egg in their basket."

"Come now," says Dirthamen onto her lips. "We'll do well together. You belonged to me even before you heard my voices. Now? You have power, and you know how to use it. You shall become something greater than yourself. Do you think I will diminish you, my Herald?"

Iskia shudders in the god's arms. "No," she says. "But I will not lose myself to you." No matter how much he lures her to.

He laughs then, a sound that sends tingles down to her toes. "If you do, we will have made a terrible mistake." He kisses her again, more gently now. "I know you. I know what it is to be sundered from my better self. We shall never be alone again."

"Mine is mortal, with a mortal's obligations," says Iskia, wetting her lips. "Yours... is a god. If he came to be freed, what then?"

A shrug. Dirthamen says, "It is my turn to walk where he cannot follow. It is a sorrow unto me, make no mistake. But united, you and I, how would that prevent our rejoining? I think you would appreciate him."

She doubts it will be that simple. But Iskia does not disdain complexity. And to see with her own true eyes such a reunion? Instead, she gives voice to the nagging thought, "You would make an abomination of me."

The sensation of lips curl into a smile. "You always were," says Dirthamen. He traces the his thumb over her face, demarking lines she knows well without being able to see: vallaslin, but not those on her face. "I should mark you here and now. You are beautiful now. You would be radiant if you bore my signs. But we shall not reveal our hand. Not in this manner."

"The geas," Iskia says, as his thumb comes to rest on her lower lip. "The Well-- I _had_  to drink it. Why?" She takes the tip of his thumb lightly between her teeth and dabs her tongue against it. She feels thumb-print and manicured nail, tastes the dust of the Fade. Substantial to all her senses but her eyes. Iskia wonders what the rest of him tastes like.

"Do I really need to explain?" he says, and uncurls his arm from her waist. "Disappointing." The word washes over her face in a single puff of air. His hand claps against her backside: through her coat, only hard enough to startle, to widen her eyes. "Under geas, you appear as something that can be controlled. Caged. But with me, you have the key. So you see, you have little hope of succeeding against Fen'Harel without me. _He_  holds that power now. And you would rather be mine than his. _I_  will protect you."

A chill strikes Iskia as the implications wash over her. "Elodie. What of her?"

Dirthamen's hand stays firm where he landed it, squeezing at the leather as he pulls her a step closer. "She is known, of course. Something easily seen, something that distracts. Your daughter must be a vessel for your hopes and fears, must she not?"

"You'd use her as _bait_!" says Iskia, but she does not pull away. She looks up at Dirthamen, at his emptiness of form. One-handed, she grips at him tightly, nails pressing against his absent flesh.

He says nothing. He tilts his head toward her, a challenge. He offers no dispute: he leaves it to her to _object_  to this. But she cannot, she _does not_  object. The girl was born of selfishness and greed, out of clinging to something she feared would be taken from her. Elodie was always coin to be spent: not cheaply, but without regret. This she will do in a heartbeat the moment it becomes necessary. She too, remains silent. Nothing more needs to be said of this.

"Trust in the chains you have woven. If you deploy her, it will not be as sacrifice, but as weapon. Mythal's Well readies her for what she must be, as it readied you." He curls one hand around her neck, squeezing gently: just enough that she feels her pulse thrumming against his fingers. "You need not kneel to me, Inquisitor," says Dirthamen against her lips. "Not today. One day you will: not because I ask it of you, but because you want to. It is not your surrender I desire, but your will." The hand tightens, just long enough to steal a single breath from her.

Iskia swallows against Dirthamen's close palm. She says, "It could be you who kneels."

Dirthamen releases her neck, and laughs. "I've been surprised," he says. "But we're out of time. Are you ready?"

"No," says Iskia.

"Good," says Dirthamen, and he kisses her one final time. His tongue presses past her lips, parting them like the covers of a book. The god's arms catch her tight and hold her close as he bends her backwards. The kiss goes deeper, through her mouth and beyond, cool down her throat, tingling to her toes, drawing her down, down, down.

* * *

A cool breeze across their cheeks is what awakens them. They open their eyes, blinking against the sunset light. Two ravens sitting idle on the rocks look to them at the sound of their motion.

They push themselves upwards: the motion is even on both sides, steady. A spark of emerald force serves on the left side, where all they have is stump. They rise to their feet with unity and purpose, bending halfway up to dust off their coat. A toss of their head lands the long tail of hair straight down their back; they push the bangs from their face with their sole hand.

Simple motions to start, as they accustom themselves to the new realities of their form. They stride forward, balancing delicately on their sharp bootheels. There is pain where a hand should be, and they are filled with the exhaustion of a body pushed past its limits. Just a little further.

They stop before the eluvian. Still active, still shimmering. In this world, they were not out long. Minutes, perhaps. Minutes, and thousands of years. The ravens rise up and settle upon their shoulders in silence. The familiarity is enough to warm the deeper, darker part of them.

They touch their fingers to the eluvian, and as one, they smile. "You have plans?" they say, hand slipping through the surface. "You never were very good at planning, Fen'Harel."


End file.
